Hand quilting in the shadow....
 

Help. I'm having a terrible time with my quilting stitches because of the thickness of the material where seams have been pressed toward the dark material. How do you handle this? Do you use the up and down stab method or is there is a secret to doing the running stitch for the quilting. Need some advice.

My Jim bought me some needle pullers, and they work great. When I know I am close to the seam allowance, usually do just two stitches or even one. It slows me down a bit but, I have loads of time. Most anything made of rubber will work. Some folks cut up their old dish washing gloves, but if you don't have any, just see if the local quilt shop has some like mine. They came in packs of two, and Jim got me four of them.

I also stab stitch at the thick spots. Not always straight on the back but oh well.

Jp

My problem isn't pulling the needle through, it's getting the stitches even--some of long, some are short -no consistency.

Take your glasses off... then you won't notice if a few are a little shorter ;) I know it's hard isn't it to get the consistency we want. BUT if you take a look at the old time quilts... you either have super stitches on quilts that are essentially whole cloth with some appliqué.... OR you have huge toe nail catcher stitches on utility quilts..... I think we are way too hard on ourselves.... unless of course you are hoping to produce show stopper quilts.

I think that's the nature of the beast with thick seams/handquilting. I generally press my seams open and it does help quite a bit. But I've been known to do one or 2 stitches in areas where there are thick seams as well. I generally try to make my quilting design such that I don't have to go over heavy seams but it doesn't necessarily always work out that way. With practice, you'll get an eye for getting a single/two stitches the same size/consistency as your others.

Try to make them consistent, even if you have to make them longer!

I used to hand quilt. I would stitch near the ditch so I didn't have that problem.